Reagan Has `Vetoes On His Mind` For Big-spending Bills

August 10, 1985|By United Press International.

WASHINGTON — President Reagan, faced with projections from advisers of a $200 billion deficit for at least the next two years, passed the word Friday that he is ready to veto any spending bill, including farm legislation, that exceeds his budget limits.

Although Congress adopted a fiscal 1986 budget ceiling only last week, there was no midsummer respite from the budget and deficit problems that Reagan has made the top domestic priority of his presidency.

In a closed session at the White House Thursday, Reagan and the Cabinet were told by acting Budget Director Joseph Wright that a more recent and pessimistic economic analysis would drive the deficit over the $200 billion mark.

The deficit-reduction package approved by Congress last week projects a deficit of $172 billion for 1986, $155 billion for 1987 and $112 billion for 1988.

White House spokesman Larry Speakes said that if Congress does not ``toe the line`` and hit its own budget target, Reagan will send individual appropriations bills back to Capitol Hill.

``He has vetoes on his mind and he has his pen poised,`` Speakes said.

``I can assure you that the President will do his part to hold down spending. And if that means veto, then he will veto.``

Speakes said the four-year farm program under consideration by congressional committees ``is a serious contender to be classified as a budget-buster,`` because the spending proposal has ``doubled or tripled since Congress started working on it.``

A budget official who asked not to be identified said a new economic forecast is coming out at the end of this month that would probably boost the deficit projection to the neighborhood of $200 billion.

``At this point it really looks like it,`` he said. ``The general trend is that is going to happen if we get on our present track.``

The Washington Post reported that Wright gave Reagan and the Cabinet that pessimistic forecast during a closed meeting at the White House Thursday.

``Unless Congress toes the line on reducing spending,`` Speakes said,

``there`s a distinct possibility that we will face deficits in excess of $200 billion in `86. Congress has imposed upon itself a spending goal, and it`s imperative they meet their goal.``

He said spending bills already approved by the House would exceed the 1986 budget by $15 billion to $19 billion, and that the congressional ``track record on appropriations bills over the last five years`` would cause Reagan to consider vetoes.

But a spokesman for House Speaker Thomas O`Neill (D., Mass.) said Speakes` figures were wrong.

Speakes` assertion that the eight appropriations bills already passed are over the budget goal ``is absolutely false,`` said Christopher Matthews.

``The fact is that Congress has stayed well within its budget targets for fiscal year 1986.